• CEG Presents: Bueno Bueno: tribute to Morphine w/ special guests Jimmy john McCabe Band (formerly of Yolk)
• 6:00pm Seating / 7:30pm Show

$10 in advance/$15 at the door

CEG Presents: Bueno Bueno: tribute to Morphine  w/ special guests Jimmy john McCabe Band (formerly of Yolk).

Join us a for a special night of celebration as a number of New York artists come together to pay homage to one of the great cult band of the 90's - MORPHINE

ABOUT MORPHINE

Morphine were a rarity -- bluesy, bare-bones rock & roll without any guitars. Instead of guitar riffs, the trio relied on sliding two-string bass lines, raucous saxophones, and wry, ironically detached vocals. During the mid-'90s, Morphine gained a sizable cult following in America, primarily due to good word of mouth, heavy college airplay, and positive reviews.

Morphine were formed in 1990 by bassist/vocalist Mark Sandman, who had previously played with the bluesy alternative rock band Treat Her Right, and Dana Colley (tenor and baritone saxophone), a former member of the local Boston group Three Collers. Sandman and Colley added drummer Jerome Dupree to complete the lineup. The group released its debut album, Good, on the independent Accurate/Distortion label in 1991; it was reissued on Rykodisc Records in 1992. Good received substantial airplay on American college radio stations, as well as favorable reviews in alternative publications across the country. After the release of Good, Dupree left the band and was replaced by Billy Conway, who had previously played with Sandman in Treat Her Right.

The positive reception to Good set the stage for 1993's Cure for Pain, which received good reviews from a variety of music and mainstream publications upon its spring release. Morphine supported Cure for Pain with an extensive American and European tour that lasted throughout 1994, which helped the album sell over 300,000 copies -- an impressive feat for an independent release. In 1995, Morphine released their third album, Yes, which also received favorable reviews and helped the band sustain its large cult following.

The success of Cure for Pain and Yes also attracted the attention of major record labels, and in late 1996, Dreamworks bought out the majority share of Morphine's contract from Rykodisc. Like Swimming, the group's debut for Dreamworks, was released in the spring of 1997 to generally favorable reviews, yet it failed to break Morphine out of cult status. On July 3, 1999, Sandman collapsed on-stage during a performance in Rome, dying of a heart attack at the age of 47. The Night was posthumously issued early the following year and the live disc Bootleg Detroit appeared in fall 2000.

ABOUT YOLK

From the moment of their inception in upstate New York in the early '90s, Yolk's sound always delivered a harder edge than their jam band peers. After recording three self-released albums, various lineup changes spelled the end of the band as a full-time entity. Yolk was founded in 1992 as a result of the stagnancy of the music scene at SUNY Binghamton, where the band attended school.

The septet's blend of sinewy rock melodies, jazzy horn charts, propulsive funk rhythms, and politically charged lyrics sent the music in a direction that would be explored by bands like Rage Against the Machine. Yolk's sound also provided accidental hints of the rap-metal craze of the late '90s. The band's first disc, a self-titled release put out in late 1993, featured the least political of vocalist Jimmy John McCabe's lyrics, pursuing poetic imagery with songs like "So This Is Heaven." The band's chugging rhythms were diverse, yet unified. The follow-up, Caution: Social Prescriptions May Cause Side Effects found the band playing with a harder sound.

Increasingly, McCabe's lyrics delved into the same social consciousness delivered by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder: stories of individuals in great turmoil. With the departure of drummer Matt Murphy and tenor sax player Adam Ash, the band recruited former Moe drummer Jim Loughlin (whose fiery work fit perfectly in with his new band) to replace Andrew Bellavia of Third Rail to replace Ash. They were soon back in the studio, recording what was to be their final studio album, Individually Twisted. The disc was easily the most well-produced the band had created to date and pointed optimistically towards the band's future.

The band toured constantly, mostly in the northeast, including a successful stint on a Rock the Vote mini-tour in autumn 1996 with fellow jam bands Moe, Moon Boot Lover, and the Ominous Seapods that featured a good deal of cross-pollination between bands. Soon, though, McCabe announced his departure. He would be replaced by two vocalists: Brian Burrell of Born Leaders Anonymous and singer/songwriter Cris Noel. After several weeks of rehearsal, Noel and Loughlin split with the group. Loughlin was replaced by original drummer Matt Murphy. Soon, guitarist Pete Carvelas decided to depart, leaving the band a shambles of what it once was. By the beginning of 1998, Burrell was gone as well and McCabe was back in his role as the group's frontman. After that, the band went on semi-permanent hiatus, playing out under the name Yolk from time to time in various configurations.